Dynamic Africa
Formerly, "This is Africa/fyeahAfrica".
(Profile Photo by Mama Casset)
DISCLAIMER:
I do not endorse any of the products or opinions shared on this site, nor do I claim any of the work posted here to be my own - except where stated. All posts originally made by me are credited. If no credit is given then the work is either my own/written by me or reblogged from another source.
A LITTLE ABOUT ME:
Student, 24
Based in Cape Town, South Africa
From Lagos, Nigeria
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(As an unemployed media student, all donations go into ensuring my survival in this cruel world and future projects I hope to embark on).
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(since Oct. 21th 2012)
In light of the recent UN report that was published and circulated earlier this week, highlighting the ‘misdeeds’ of United Nations Peacekeeping forces globally - including sexual abuse, money laundering, fraud and illegal transportation of minerals across international borders, I remembered a highly disturbing documentary I watched in one of my political science classes whilst in college.
The documentary, ‘Blue Helmets: Peace & Dishonor’, focuses on the heinous sexual abuse crimes committed by UN peacekeeping forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo and other African countries.
Unfortunately, my internet won’t allow me to watch the film at a normal rate but based on my first viewing of the documentary, it provides a critical insight into the systematic criminal activities that take place through the abuse of power of UN peacekeeping forces, and the injustices that are insufficiently dealt with punished.
Born in 1948 in Kimbembele Ihunga, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, structural sculpture artist Bodys Isek Kingelez or Jean Baptiste is known for his incredibly detailed and colourful mixed-media architectural model-like sculptures which he calls “Architecture Maquettique”.
Currently based in the capital city Kinshasa, Kingelez has been making these sculptures since the mid-1980s.
Efé woman National Geographic November 1989 Robert C Bailey
(via aphoticoccurrences)
READER SUBMISSION
“This picture of my mother was taken in 1979 in Kinshasa, Congo DR. She is a mukongo from the Bakongo people.”
submitted by Mavonda
![AFRICA AT THE OSCARS #13: Rachel Mwanza on the Red Carpet
[insert fist-pumping gif here]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/b0bf956e2d396461a1271a40545dfa4b/tumblr_mir2u60zYE1rqkjy0o1_500.jpg)
AFRICA AT THE OSCARS #13: Rachel Mwanza on the Red Carpet
[insert fist-pumping gif here]
AFRICA AT THE OSCARS #7: Rachel Mwanza
With two film roles under her belt and Best Actress awards from the Berlin Film Festival, the Tribeca Film Festivaland the Vancouver Film Critics Circle in 2012, as well as a nomination for Best Actress at the 2013 Canadian Screen Awards, the promising young actress from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) will soon be on her way to yet another awards ceremony after recently being granted a visa to travel to the United States. The visa comes just in time for the Oscars this weekend where the film in which Mwanza made her debut role, Rebelle, is nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Foreign Language Film category as a submission from Canada.
Born in the DRC in 1997, Mwanza had a troubled and painful upbringing. Abandoned by her parents at the age of six, she subsequently spent the following years of her life living between her grandmother’s house and life on the streets, her life was significantly transformed after being cast in filmmaker Kim Nguyen’s film Rebelle where she plays the lead role of Komona, a girl kidnapped by a Congolese army at the age of 12. She was cast in the film after Nguyen saw her in a documentary about street children in Kinshasa, the Congolese capital. The filmmakers have also agreed to fund Mwanza’s education until she reaches 18.
Her most recent role is in the Marc-Henri Wajnberg drama Kinshasa Kids.
Hopefully we’ll be seeing more of Mwanza in the future and in more diverse roles.
Do the Kidiaba!
Few who saw last year’s African Cup of Nations final will forget it any time soon. The last few penalties in the shootout were played out to the chorus of the Zambian squad on the sidelines and in the huddle, with the greater narrative overwhelming. There is something about this tournament that sets it apart from any other. As the backstories come into play, the football takes on an entirely new sense of importance, and emotions begin to run wild.
As for what DR Congo’s Muteba Kidiaba was thinking when he celebrated his country’s equaliser against Ghana, we can only imagine.
GIF by Matheus, the man behind 8-bit Football. Words by Max Grieve.
The Kidiaba booty shuffle, as I like to call it.
FRIDAY NIGHT SOUKOUS: Felix Wazekwa - Que Demande le Peuple
With the all the tempo changes, you feel as though you’re getting various songs in one continuous stream. That’s what I love about Lingala music.
Ghana vs DR Congo AFCON highlights
Multi-media collages from Kananga-born Congolese artist Kura Shomali, who often appropriates the works of iconic African photographers such as Malick Sidibe and Samuel Fosso, as inspiration for his artistically chaotic, yet organized, works of art.
DYNAMIC AFRICA HOLIDAY GIFT LIST ITEM #12: A Congo Chronicle: Patrice Lumumba in Urban Art
A Congo Chronicle: Patrice Lumumba in Urban Art provides a unique encounter with the Independence movement that took hold in urban cafés of the Congo.
This study is developed around a series of about fifty urban art or popular paintings, a genre traceable to the 1920s, by the influential artist Tshibumba Kanda-Matulu. It chronicles contemporary social and political realities in its depiction of the dramatic political career of Patrice Lumumba, the father of Congo independence who became the nation’s first Prime Minister in 1960, but was soon after killed under mysterious circumstances.
This book helps us understand not only how Congolese view the turbulent years of their independence, but also how it relates to their beliefs. The paintings show how art contributes to the creation of a national history and national heroes, and shapes the national consciousness in a newly independent, multi-cultural society. Essays discuss popular urban art, the life of Patrice Lumumba, Tshibumba’s series of Lumumba paintings, the Congolese memory of Lumumba, and Congolese cultural heroes.
DYNAMIC AFRICA HOLIDAY GIFT LIST ITEM #3:
If you’re lucky enough to hail from any of these West and Central African cities (more at their store), Fashizblack has you covered (quite literally) with their brand new range of exclusive t-shirts and sweatshirts.
The typography on each shirt/sweatshirt features graphics of a popular fabric print from each of these cities such as Adinkra in Abidjan and Kuba of Kinshasa.
It’s often said that “necessity is the mother of invention” and this idiom could not be further from the truth in the case of self-taught Rwandan engineer Anastase Tabaro.
With no more than six years of elementary-level education, Tabaro proves that sometimes, determination, dedication and initiative are enough to achieve great feats of innovation. The 59-year-old, who started his research in 1990 with the objective of selling power to his neighbours, has now built a hydroelectric system that provides power to some 700 households in and around his village in rural Rwanda.
“I grew up in [neighboring] Democratic Republic of Congo and my village had electricity,” Tabaro says. “Then my family moved to Rwanda and our village had no electricity. I felt I couldn’t live without electricity so I started to research by myself.”
